To scrape beneath the surface brings with it its own mortality.
To bleed and feel a fire made flesh.
Ruby colored pulp trickles downward, sometimes slowly and at other times with a flush of emotion so to drown out the hours and days and weeks and years of otherwise monotony. Sloshing up, spilling over, at moments gushing out, until it’s all spent at the bottom of the hourglass—that damned silhouette in which we drove with a turbulent force your vibrance and my rage.
To feel a passion not known to civility. And to gamble with our salvation.
Church bells ring out off-key to announce across town to sinners like you and me that we’ve been painting our sin with that single mortal wound. Because we plucked that rose, hands gripped round those thorns, and tore at it till it ripped from the roots of life. That we might keep it for ourselves for just a little while. Because to live for beauty is to submit to such violence.
And to watch the petals drip then one by one.
For better or for worse.